Need to identify unknown plc

Hi,
Can anyone help. I have been asked to support a machine built by the Oyster Bay Pump Works Inc.
the machine is around 8 years old.
Below is a picture of the plc, it looks like the manufacturers name has been deliberately removed. Can anyone help identify it please.




Thanks in advance

Unless I'm mistaken, or having nightmare flashbacks from a job I did a Long Long Long time ago, that is a CTC Motion PLC, programmed in I believe "QuickStep".

The company seems to still be around.

http://www.ctc-control.com/products/2700/2700.asp

Take a look there, I think that's what you are looking at.

I think thats it too, jst replied over at MrPLC.com, i got the answer using a little bit of Google Fu !!

rdrast said:

Unless I'm mistaken, or having nightmare flashbacks from a job I did a Long Long Long time ago, that is a CTC Motion PLC, programmed in I believe "QuickStep".

The company seems to still be around.

http://www.ctc-control.com/products/2700/2700.asp

Take a look there, I think that's what you are looking at.

Click to expand...

Spot on! Thanks very much.
Can I take it from your reply that it was not a pleasant experience!

tragically1969 said:

I think thats it too, jst replied over at MrPLC.com, i got the answer using a little bit of Google Fu !!

Click to expand...

Do you have any experience of these things? Is it a horror?

Well, I used them a long time ago, and the programming environment was cumbersome, and left a lot to be desired. I can't say what it is like now, but 10 or 15 years later, I'm sure there have been improvements.

These aren't traditional PLC's, they are more like Giddings & Lewis PLC/Motion controllers, very high speed, and programmed up in 'task modules' for lack of a better term. They are mostly event driven, and not typically sequential.

The hardware was fine, but the development software was (again, at the time), pretty bad. I even wrote my own c-like pre-processor just so I could do symbolic programming rather than just raw, unlabeled, register I/O references.

As always, Your milage may vary.

It seems a bit overkill for a relatively simple application, but I guess that could be a historical thing for the manufacturers. They seem to have used it on all the equipment our customer has. Even simpler units have the same controller, just different cards.
My worry for them is that the controller is possibly obsolete now. The users rely heavily on the equipment, it has an old pc on the front end, its a disaster waiting to happen. I would like to recommend a complete update of the control system, especially as they want to integrate it with some other equipment.
I guess the plc software is some sort of compiled code, that is meaningless machine code if uploaded from the controller?

Unless they have changed something, yes, the code in the controller is compiled. Back when I used that controller, you could not upload a program at all.

As far as obsolete, well, I don't know there. It seems that CTC is still going strong, and even have new software including OPC Servers for their controllers.

If it were my call, I'd be moving to another platform, but if they have a large installed base, it might be worth sticking with the CTC controllers. That is definitely overkill for a pump application.